KHANDALA PIPE TUNNEL

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 06/01/2018

A man-made underground serving as a passage for big water pipes (BROSSET 1962c: 602 table) became the home of bats (Chiroptera) at the reversing station Khandala. SITUATION: In an unknown spatial relation to the –>Khandala Railway Tunnel. Khandala, once a Sanitarium in the Maval taluk of Pune / Poona district (IMPERIAL GAZETTEER 1907-1909, 15: 223-224) lies on the top of the Western Ghats, and at a linear distance of approximately 50 km east-south-east of Mumbai (ex- Bombay) and about 65 km north-west of Pune city. DESCRIPTION: BROSSET (1962c: 602 table): Reversing station in Khandala … Artificial underground serving as a passage for big water pipes. CAVE LIFE - bats (Chiroptera): BROSSET (1962a: 17) narrates how the presence of Rousettus (R. leschenaulti Desmarest 1820) at the reversing station Khandala was a nuisance to industry because the steel pipes were deeply corroded by the acidity (sic!) of their droppings and constructional work had to be undertaken for their exclusion. BROSET (1962c: 602 table): The Jesuit brother A. Navarro observed 20 years ago (1933 - 1940) a very large colony of Rhinolophus lepidus Blyth 1844 at the Reversing station in Khandala … artificial underground serving as a passage for big water pipes. BROSSET (1963: 342): Tranquility affects different [Chiroptera] species differently. [The fulveous fruit bat] Rousettus leschenaulti is very intolerant and abandoons its diurnal roost easily and definitely if it is disturbed. Twenty years ago, the colony at Khandela deserted the railway tunnel aft Br. Navarra took some specimens there.